It would not take long to find an article or a comment on how the banking industry is embracing the digital realm, but is this actually true? Are digital services an opportunity or a burden for banks? Patrick Brusnahan reports on what the sector needs to do in order to compete in the cyberworld
While every bank has made efforts with mobile and digital services, the levels of success widely differ.
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According to PwC, only 22% of UK financial services firms interact with their customer on mobile. In addition, Avoka’s State of Digital Sales in Banking study suggests that there is a lot of work to be done.
The report states that a poor experience, for example an application process designed for a desktop rather than a mobile, could lead to the current 70–90% abandonment rates for new product applications. While marketing may be working, the digital sales experience was not adequate, resulting in the loss of a potential new customer.
Only nine of the 32 banks surveyed across Europe, North America, and Australia, were getting serious in terms of readiness for digital sales of personal banking products.
PROGRESS AND OPPORTUNITY
Luckily for banks, Avoka states that there are plenty of opportunities for improvements to their digital sales capabilities.
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By GlobalDataWhile most banks are struggling to create both a superior online customer experience and offer digital account opening across their broad product line, mobile experiences are improving. Some 43% of personal banking products can be opened on a mobile device, up from 31% in 2016.
However, banks are still not taking action on the chances offered by digital sales. Less than 30% of all products can be applied for using digital channels.
In 2017, 28% of banks’ accounts and loans can be opened via a mobile device, up from 20% in 2016. Europe and Australia were the regions with the largest rises while North America showed only a 6% increase over the year.
Larger banks, according to the report, were actually the most dedicated to improvements in this area. Two large US banks showed an improvement of over 30% versus the previous year in terms of the percentage of personal accounts that were ready for mobile sales. Three European banks and two Australian banks surveyed also made significant improvements.
Omnichannel efforts need to improve. Starting on one platform and finishing it on another can be crucial. Starting an application on mobile can be easy, but consumers may need more documents and would prefer to finish the application on a desktop with little to no extra effort.
Save-and-resume is an essential feature but results from Avoka’s survey show that not much has changed over the past year. All three geographies show low availability of the feature across product lines. The highest was Australia at 31% in 2017, the same level as 2016.
